Widdecombe: Marriage shouldn’t be redefined

Marriage is a unique institution which should not be redefined for same-sex marriage, former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe has warned.

Miss Widdecombe’s comments come amidst increasing concern at attempts to alter the definition of marriage by the Governments in Westminster and Holyrood.

Writing in the Daily Express Miss Widdecombe said: “A long-term commitment between a man and a woman and recognised in law is what we rely on for the production and nurture of children.

Unique

“No other arrangement, either homosexual or heterosexual, should be considered equivalent.”

She also said “that when asked to give legal recognition to particular arrangements, the law should always give a privileged and unique place to marriage as currently defined.”

Earlier this week Stagecoach tycoon Sir Brian Souter hailed marriage as the building block of society.

Babylonian

During an interview with The Sunday Times Sir Brian said: “We are arguing here about what kind of society we want to live in.

“Are we going to be in a Babylonian-Greek type of society, where sex is primarily a recreational activity, or are we going to stick with the Judeo-Christian tradition, where procreation is something that we want to put within a marriage context?

“These two different philosophies are beginning to emerge and quite honestly the issue about gay relationships is a small side-product from that discussion.”

Fierce

The proposal to redefine marriage in Scotland has faced fierce opposition from senior members of the Roman Catholic Church.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the Church’s head, has branded the proposal as a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”, and warned that it would deprive children of the opportunity to have a mother and father.

And Philip Tartaglia, a senior bishop, has said that the Scottish Government does not deserve the votes of Scotland’s 800,000 Roman Catholics.